Does McMaster care if you repeat a course?
We will use the highest grade reported in the calculation of the admission average.
We may ask students who repeated more than 2 courses, or individual courses more than twice, to provide a letter detailing any extenuating circumstances that may have led to repeating multiple courses.
McMaster University, quoted from the OUAC guide for guidance counsellors, September 2026 entry.
How that compares
McMaster uses your highest grade — the same as 19 of the 23 Ontario universities that answer this.
1 university uses your most recent attempt
Queen's
1 university may not consider repeats at all
U of T (St. George)
1 university assesses repeats case by case
Waterloo
1 university averages your attempts past a threshold
Western
This is what McMaster tells Ontario guidance counsellors; it is not published on their student pages. Rules like this change rarely, but confirm anything you are about to act on.